


Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip

by FuriousPoplar



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fluff, Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 11:23:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8160436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuriousPoplar/pseuds/FuriousPoplar
Summary: Asriel wants to teach Papyrus to bake.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I wrote something that isn't 5000-6000 words long. I totes forgot I could do that.
> 
> Also minor warning for a single solitary curse word that I didn't feel was enough to shift this into 'T' rated. If you're five years old, maybe skip this one.

                He wanted to teach Papyrus to bake. Cookies seemed like a simple enough start.

Asriel had never tried baking with him, before. It’s one of the few things he could call a first, one of those rare activities that simply never occurred to him to try back when he was a flower with nothing but infinite time to burn.

Cooking, on the other hand, was a different matter. He had taught Papyrus to cook so, so many times. Sometimes it was for the sake of a larger game, sometimes it was to see how skilled he could become. Once or twice, he was just hungry. He never wants to teach Papyrus to cook ever again. Every time had been a lengthy, frustrating process, and usually ended with a lot of LOADs as he tore him to pieces in a blind rage over and over again. Undyne can’t cook for beans, but despite her lack of skill she has spirit and _patience,_ somehow, that he can only dream of.

Baking, however, wasn’t cooking. Not exactly. It had a different name, and that was all he needed to convince Papyrus that they were two completely different things and that he’d be learning this new skill from scratch, and that nothing he knew about cooking could ever apply here. Despite the necessity, he got an ill, ugly feeling when he lied to him. He doesn’t like lying to Papyrus, not anymore.

He does, however, enjoy spending time with Papyrus. He was always, after all, Asriel’s favorite toy for a reason. In times past, he’d have described the skeleton as _interesting_ and _variable_ , and maybe even _hilariously_ _naive_  if he wasn’t feeling completely detached from the world that particular day. Now, he prefers words like _funny_ , or _kind,_ or _energetic_. They make him sound like less of an object and more of a person.

 

“Now that we have all the stuff in there, we have to stir it,” Asriel took a healthy step back from his bony disciple after seeing how resolutely and firm he was grasping the wick. He really didn’t want a repeat of the egg incident that had taken place an hour (spent cleaning) ago. “Not hard, though! Not the way you stir when you cook!”

Papyrus raised a brow. “HOW ELSE WOULD I DO IT?”

“Slowly,” he said, making a gentle downwards pushing gesture with both paws. “Pretend that you’re reeling in a big fishing rod, but it’s really hard.”

“SLOWLY…” Papyrus hummed, absorbed in contemplation. “UNDYNE ONCE TOLD ME THAT IF YOU EVER STIR SLOWLY, WHATEVER YOU’RE MAKING WILL TURN OUT HORRIBLE. THE FLAVOR COMES FROM YOUR PASSION, SHE SAID!”

_That’s because Undyne doesn’t know what she’s doing._ He shooed the words away with a quick shake of his head. True as they may be, it’s still not a kind thought. “When did she tell you that?” he asked, patiently.

“THE FIRST TIME WE EVER COOKED TOGETHER.” He sighed melodramatically, awash with nostalgia. “IT FEELS LIKE AN ETERNITY AGO, NOW. TO THIS DAY, I KEEP HER ADVICE CLOSE TO HEART. OR, I WOULD, IF I HAD A HEART. I KEEP IT LODGED FIRMLY UNDER MY STERNUM, INSTEAD!”

He giggled, before he could stop himself. He hates giggling; he always sounds too high-pitched, and Chara always takes it as an invitation to poke him on the nose or smoosh his cheeks into his face. But they’re not here right now, so he’s off the hook. “That’s true for cooking,” he lied, feeling guilty but not wishing to sully the weird, destructive bond him and Undyne had forged across a thousand ruined kitchens. “But baking is different, remember? Here, if you stir _fast_ , things end badly. Usually ‘cause all the batter flies everywhere and makes a big mess.”

“ISN’T THAT TYPICALLY A GOOD SIGN?” Papyrus inquired. Asriel’s best description for his look would be ‘befuddled’.

“Again, baking is different. _Really_ different. The less mess there is, the better things are going to turn out. It’s like, reverse cooking, I guess.”

Papyrus ‘huh’-ed, enlightened. “WOWIE! I’D NEVER HAVE GUESSED THEY COULD BE SO DISSIMILAR. ESPECIALLY SINCE WE’RE USING SO MANY OF THE SAME INGREDIENTS, APPLIANCES, TECHNIQUES AND DISHES!”

He forced a soft laugh and tugged at his apron. “Ha, yeah, they’re, it’s weird how unalike they are. You’d think they’d be the same, but nope! Completely different.”

_Please don’t set everything on fire please don’t set everything on fire please don’t set everything on fire._

“VERY WELL! I SHALL EMPLOY YOUR FISHING ROD TECHNIQUE,” he proudly announced, bringing his stirring-arm to life and dragging the whisk around the bowl with a steady circular motion.

Asriel smiled and let out a hushed sigh of relief under his breath. No property damage had occurred yet, so this was already going a lot better than expected. “Yeah, just like that,” he encouraged, bright and cheery. “Good job!”

Papyrus glanced up at him under his brow. “THOUGH I AM DEEPLY MOVED BY YOUR FLATTERY, YOUR HIGHNESS,” he began with a respectful candor, “I WOULD HUMBLY RECOMMEND SAVING IT FOR THE TRICKIER PROCEDURES! SUCH KIND WORDS ARE A LIMITED RESOURCE, NOT TO BE SQUANDERED ON SUCH A SURE TASK. THE GREAT PAPYRUS HAS MASTERED THE ART OF STIRRING AT ALL SPEEDS, AFTER ALL!”

Asriel made a lopsided smile, not oblivious to how Papyrus had just told him, albeit incredibly politely, to stop patronizing him. “Fair point,” he admitted with a small shrug. “…You know that you don’t have to call me ‘your highness’, right? I’m just a kid.”

Papyrus scoffed. “AGE HAS NO BEARING ON YOUR BIRTHRIGHT, YOUR HIGHNESS. BUT, IF YOU WOULD PREFER, ‘YOUR MAJESTY’, OR ‘ALL-MIGHTY GOD-EMPEROR’, I WOULD BE HAPPY TO OBLIGE!”

‘God emperor.’ Wwwow. He paused, for a moment, to reflect on the horrible dishonor he’d bring his family name if he actually insisted that anyone worship him as a deity. He concluded that he’d be remembered forever as a disgraceful tyrant, but it’d be otherwise totally worth it. “That’s not why,” he started, ignoring the temptation to simply let Papyrus carry on as normal. He wasn’t anybody’s superior, and shouldn’t be called as such. “I’m never gonna be in charge of anything. I mean, sure, my Dad is still sort of a figurehead, but you don’t have to treat me any different. I’m just Asriel.”

“BAH!” he shouted, a deeply frustrated scowl overtaking his skull. He kept stirring regardless. “NOBODY HAS ANY RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY FIGURES THESE DAYS! NOT EVEN THE AUTHORITY FIGURES! KING ASGORE KEEPS TELLING ME TO JUST CALL HIM ASGORE! HIS CLONE INSISTS THAT HER NAME IS ‘TORIEL’! FRISK POLITELY REFUSED THE TITLE OF ‘GRAND SAVIOR OF ALL MONSTERKIND’ AND WHENEVER I ADDRESS CHARA IN ACCORDANCE TO THEIR NOBILITY, THEY GIVE ME THIS _SERIOUSLY_ CREEPY STARE. CAN’T _ONE_ OF YOU ACCEPT SOME RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR RESPONSIBILITY!?”

Asriel tried and failed to hold back a laugh. “Wow, I uh, didn’t know you felt that strongly about it.”

Papyrus stiffened and looked sulkily into the bowl, batter now thoroughly mixed. He didn’t stop stirring. “OF COURSE I DO. NOBODY EVEN BOTHERS TO UPHOLD THE BASIC STANDARDS OF DECENCY AND ORDER THAT OUR ENTIRE GOVERNMENT WAS FOUNDED ON, ANYMORE! IF I WERE TO GIVE UP NOW, THE WHOLE THING WOULD CRUMBLE APART INTO DUSTSHED AND ANARCHY!”

Asriel laughed again. “I guess if it’s that important to you, then you can call me by title.”

“MAINTAINING PROPER ETIQUETTE,” he practically spat, “IS _VITAL_ TO ME. I SHALL TAKE YOU UP ON THAT OFFER, YOUR HIGHNESS.”

“That’s alright. Oh, you can stop stirring now.”

Papyrus tilted the bowl so he could see better. “THIS LOOKS GOOD?”

“Yeah! Looks great!”

“EXCELLENT!” he added, standing up even straighter. Asriel wondered how the gesture of pride didn’t simply hurt his back. Or, well, maybe it did; Papyrus wouldn’t be caught dead complaining if good posture was involved. “NOW, OH ROYAL BAKING INSTRUCTOR, WHAT COMES NEXT?”

“Now, we’re going to clump the dough together into little balls,” he informed, bringing his cupped paws together and pantomiming something that was supposed to look like rolling but more resembled packing a pathetically feeble snowball together. “Then, we can lay them on the sheet and put them in the oven! Unless I’m forgetting something…”

Papyrus continued smiling and said nothing as he went over his mental recipe. In Papyrus’s boots, a lesser man (or a certain know-it-all, manner-less sibling) would have said something like, ‘Don’t look at me, how would I know? You’re the one teaching’. But Papyrus held his figurative tongue. Asriel has always treasured his manners.

“Uh,” he concluded poignantly. “Yep, I think that’s all. So, just do what I do, okay?”

Asriel demonstrated the proper technique, scooping a lump of cookie dough out of the bowl and patting it down into a messy blob that only resembled a ball in the loosest sense of the word. He finished his demonstration by plopping it down into a corner of the pre-greased pan with a wet thud. Papyrus stared, wide-eyed and thoughtful the entire time.

“Just like that! I think this pan will hold… about fifteen cookies? So we’ll do three rows of five, and then we’ll keep bringing out pans until the bowl is empty. Sound good?”

Papyrus nodded enthusiastically. “UNDERSTOOD, YOUR HIGHNESS! NOW, LET US GET _ROLLING!_ ” he cheered.

“Yeah!” his own cheering was sort of flimsy and, _ugh_ , really squeaky, but he cheered nonetheless.

Papyrus cocked his head and looked down at him in a disturbingly sly manner. “WHAT, NOTHING?” he asked, lowly.

“Um,” he answered. “Pardon?”

Sans moaned out a dry “ _ayyyyyy_ ” from the living room and alerted Asriel to the pun that had slipped past him. _Rolling_. Let’s get _rolling._ _Because we’re rolling cookie dough. He he he, how clever. How cute. Ha ha ha ha—_

**_Kill me._ **

He groaned, keeping his wish for a quick death silent. “Aren’t you supposed to hate puns?” he whined, feeling betrayed.

“ONLY SANS’! ALTHOUGH, EVEN THEN, I STILL TAKE AFTER HIM IN MANY WAYS. I’M A REAL _CHIP_ OFF THE OLD BLOCK.”

Another groan, even more infuriated than the last.

“YOU KNOW, YOUR HIGHNESS,” Papyrus continued, either oblivious or else simply uncaring towards his suffering. He gets enough of this crap at _home_. “IT IS TRULY _SWEET_ OF YOU TO TAKE THE TIME TO EDUCATE ME!”

“you’re sporting quite the long face there, kiddo,” Sans interjected, sounding insufferably pleased with himself. “what’s the _batter?_ ”

“UGH!” Papyrus bellowed, practically insulted. “SANS, THAT WAS _WRETCHED!_ ”

“i thought it was pretty _sweet_.”

“I ALREADY USED THAT ONE!”

“wow, you’re really _panning_ my jokes, here.”

“THAT WAS…” his eyes narrowed in consideration. “PASSABLE.”

Asriel rolled balls of cookie dough, seething all the while. His two favorite people would likely have described his expression as, “grumpy-grumps” and by extension have stopped being his favorite people for a while.

His disciple ‘Nyeh-Heh-Heh’d fondly to himself. “SO, WHERE WERE WE?”

_I was considering ending either my or your, or both of our lives_. No, he thought, not that. Time and a place. “Rolling the dough into balls and placing them in the pan,” he reminded, with more patience than he thought he was capable of. “Three rows of five.”

“RIGHT! I’M ON IT!”

 

It took three full pans to empty the bowl. Forty-five cookies was a pretty great haul for one session, Asriel thought. Well, assuming they turned out okay. He was certain that he’d followed the recipe correctly, but, well, when it comes to Papyrus and food, there’s no being sure of quality.

He sighed, tiredly. He was just full of nasty little thoughts today, wasn’t he?

“ARE YOU FEELING LIGHT-HEADED AFTER ALL THAT _INTENSE BAKING ACTION_ , YOUR HIGHNESS?” Papyrus asked, with one part sincerity and another three parts… something else. It was too innocent to be sarcasm. Asriel had never been able to pin Papyrus’s Papyrus-ness down with a name.

“No,” he assured, “I’m okay. So, uh, it should take about half an hour or so to bake all these. Another ten to let them cool down. Then, they’ll be ready.”

Papyrus nodded carefully. “DO YOU THINK THEY’LL BE ANY GOOD? DID I FOLLOW YOUR INSTRUCTIONS WELL ENOUGH?”

“Of course they’ll be good!” he promised with a burst of enthusiasm. “You were helping me the every step of the way, right? What are the odds that we both screwed it up?”

“ROUGHLY FOUR-THOUSAND, THREE-HUNDRED AND TWENTY SEVEN TO ONE,” he rattled off, tone unchanging. “HMM. NOT BAD AT ALL!”

“Uh,” Asriel added.

“where you getting those numbers from, bro?” Sans interrupted again. Asriel regretted how intensely he wished, deep down, that he’d shut up and stay out of it. “i’m reading in at two-hundred forty-three to one.”

Papyrus scowled, offended on his behalf. “SANS, YOUR LACK OF FAITH IN THE PRINCE’S ABILITY IS BOTH UNINSPIRING AND ABSOLUTELY TREACHEROUS! I’LL BET THE SHINIEST TOOTH IN MY SMILE THAT THEY’LL BE _PERFECT!_ THE ENTIRE _TOWN_ WILL WANT A TASTE OF OUR FRESH DESSERTS! THEY SHALL BE MOIST, BUT NOT SOGGY! WARM, BUT NOT HOT! SWEET, BUT NOT SICKENING! SOFT, BUT NOT MUSHY! A BEAUTIFUL ARRAY OF PERFECT GOLDEN-BROWN DISKS OF OATMEAL AND CHOCOLATE, BREWING IRRESISTIBLE TEMPTATION IN THE HEARTS OF MILLIONS! WE WILL BE KNOWN ACROSS THE _GLOBE_ FOR OUR BAKING PROWESS!”

Asriel gave a quiet, low whistle to himself— Papyrus sure knew how to give a pep-talk. Sans only laughed in response, and he could hear the, _“man, isn’t my brother the coolest?”_ bouncing around inside his skull. “Gosh, Papyrus,” he began, feeling moved, “That’s really sweet of you to say.”

Both skeletons looked at him and loaded their finger-guns.

“We are not starting this again,” he demanded with a twitchy smile.

 

A silent moment passed as he and his protégé peered through the oven’s window at the lumps of dough, now wider than they were before.

“YOU KNOW,” Papyrus began, very thoroughly breaking the silence. “YOU REMIND ME A LOT OF AN OLD FRIEND OF MINE. I CAN’T PINPOINT EXACTLY WHAT IT IS… BUT THE TWO OF YOU SEEM VERY MUCH ALIKE.”

“Oh? Who were they?” he asked, trying in vain to pick matted dough out of his fur.

“HIS NAME WAS FLOWEY.”

He froze.

“HE WAS A FLOWER, UNSURPRISINGLY. HE WAS ALWAYS SO KIND TO ME! HE TAUGHT ME A WHOLE BUNCH OF THINGS, AND ALWAYS TOLD ME TO FOLLOW MY DREAMS AND NEVER GIVE UP.”

He said nothing. He hoped that Papyrus wouldn’t notice the lack of eye-contact.

“BUT… WHEN FRISK BROKE THE BARRIER… I DON’T REMEMBER IT WELL, JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, BUT I REMEMBER THAT HE… BETRAYED ME. THAT HE BETRAYED EVERYONE. AND, AFTER WE GOT TO THE SURFACE, I NEVER SAW HIM AGAIN. I WONDER, A LOT, IF HE EVER REALLY WAS MY FRIEND. IF HE MAY HAVE BEEN DECEIVING ME ALL ALONG, WANTING NOTHING MORE THAN A LOYAL TOOL. I’M THE ONE WHO CALLED EVERYONE TO THE BARRIER, AFTER ALL…”

Asriel stared at nothing, eyes glazed over. “He sounds like a real piece of shit,” he half-whispered, voice flat.

Papyrus didn’t respond. When he looked up to meet his eyes, he was expecting his jaw to be hanging open as if the hinge were busted. Instead, he just looked sad.

“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry, I uh, I don’t know where that came from.”

Papyrus shook his head, softly and slowly enough that Asriel almost didn’t notice. “THAT’S NOT WHAT REALLY TROUBLES ME ABOUT HIM, THOUGH. WHAT TROUBLES ME IS THAT I CAN’T FIND HIM. I’VE LOOKED ALL OVER, ASKED EVERY MONSTER I COULD FIND WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM, BUT NOBODY EVEN REMEMBERS HIM.”

“Why bother?” he spat. “Someone like that deserves to stay lost.”

Another sad look. “I KEPT SEARCHING BECAUSE I NEVER GOT TO SAY THAT I FORGIVE HIM, OR THAT I’D LIKE TO START OVER, IF HE WANTED. AS DISHONEST AS HE MAY HAVE BEEN, I STILL CONSIDERED HIM A FRIEND.”

 

“Asriel…” he said, voice soft and hushed. His tone caught Asriel off guard. “You’re crying. Are you alright?”

“Flour in my eyes,” he murmured back and looked to the floor.

Papyrus didn’t seem convinced. “Perhaps you’re right. Maybe I should stop looking. But, still… I hope he understands that I don’t hold anything against him.”

Asriel remained silent. When he thought he wasn’t looking, he wiped his eyes.

 

“HMM,” Papyrus hummed, “YOU SAID THE COOKIES WOULD BE COMPLETE HALF AN HOUR, YES?”

“Yeah.”

“WHY, THAT’S JUST ENOUGH TIME FOR A COOKING LESSON!”

“Uh—“

“AND YES, I KNOW YOU’VE DECLINED IN THE PAST, BUT! YOU STILL STAND TO LEARN UNTOLD FORTUNES OF CULINARY KNOWLEDGE FROM THE GREAT PAPYRUS! BESIDES, YOU’RE A MASTER BAKER, AND YOU SHARED YOUR EXPERTISE WITH ME! IT WOULD ONLY BE FAIR FOR ME TO RETURN THE FAVOR!”

_‘There’s no way in hell I’m cooking with you’_ crossed his mind. ‘ _That’s kind of you to offer, but no thank you’_ crossed it as well. He had a lot of reasons to turn down his offer, and no reasons to accept.

It was quite the surprise to both Papyrus and himself when he said, “Okay, let’s give it a shot,” with a nervous smile. The skeleton’s face lit up like a fireworks show in response, and the ensuring ‘Nyeh-heh-heh!’ was, aside from deafening, foreboding. Oh gosh, what the heck did he just agree to?

He sunk as he watched him dart about the kitchen, rattling on about how excited he was to finally be sharing his knowledge and this and that, grabbing every pot and potential ingredient he could get his literal mits on.

Although… maybe he could give cooking another honest try. There’s the slimmest hope that maybe, just maybe, he could bring out Papyrus’s potential again. But, besides that, he came here to spend time with his friend. And if his friend wanted to cook, then, well, cooking would just have to do.

 


End file.
